Alton Towers' Smiler trains collide, at least four serious injuries

sirloindude said:

Was this incident around the same spot where the ride's track sheared a couple of years ago?

No - that's earlier in the circuit.

I tell you what did happen today though... you know those apps on Facebook that dig up things from x number of years ago? 2 years ago today I was at Alton Towers, fuming because The Smiler was closed because it had stalled in the exact same place. In fact... if you look up the ride on Google Maps, there is a crane lifting a train out of the area on another stalling spree.

Re: the situation a couple years ago....I thought the track "separated" where some bolts came loose or weren't installed properly (i.e., that it was a problem with the construction and not the materials)?

This ride has always creeped me out...there were RUMORS that that bolt sheared off because the coaster had not fit together properly so they just altered one piece to squeeze it in the space they had, so there was force on the bolts that should have never been there. Again, this is just a rumor, and I don't even recall where I heard it. Could have even been a troll, so keep that in mind.

You two aren't imagining things -- the ride was closed for several days in 2013 after a bolt sheared off and the track partially separated: http://www.towersstreet.com/news/2013/the-smiler-suffers-further-downtime/

There was another incident in late 2013 in which several guide wheels fell off a train and hit guests waiting in line :http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-24794468

Given the park's reaction and people's comments about Alton Towers' concern for its self-image, I wonder if we've seen the last of Smiler operating.

I spent many years working on various coasters at kings Island. Every coaster was basically set up the same way. In order to get a ride into maintenance mode you had to use a key that only the mechanics had. Putting the ride into maintenance mode didn't automatically clear the blocks. The mechanic had to take a second key and turn a knob in order to clear the blocks. Then you could do do just about anything you wanted including putting two trains in the same block. It was forbidden for anybody to ever operate the ride in maintenance mode with people anywhere on the ride even if it appeared safe.

The only time I ever put a ride in maintence mode was when closing SOB at night. The mechanics would always take both trains off the track every night. In order to do this we had to stop a train on the lift and the second train on the transfer track. We then switched it to maintenance mode with a key given to us by maintenance so they could take control of the transfer track.

As for the lockout procedures, Kings Island used to use gang locks. These consisted of a scissor like device that had multiple spots for pad locks. Each person going into a restricted area used a lock and took the key with them. The only way to unlock the scissor was for all locks to be removed. I remember hearing a story about phantom theater. They had to lock out every night to clean the ride. One night they accidentally left the lock on. The park had to search the ride 3 times and make contact with every employee that worked the previous night before they would cut the lock off. So they do take it serious.

But like everyone said even with all these procedures in place things still happen. One morning at flight of fear maintenance caused two trains to collide. One was stopped on the final brake run and a second train on the block brake. For whatever reason maintenance manually cleared the block and released the train from the block brake without moving the train off the final run. This of course caused a collision. No injuries resulted but but was still an expensive mistake.

What Alton Towers needed to do was walk the riders down the lift to empty the train before ever putting the ride into maintenance mode. People make mistakes, but I can't imagine how a park would allow a loaded train to be moved in maintenance mode.

It's the stuff nightmares are made of. I imagine perhaps some poor ride op deciding to send a train over then realizing they shouldn't have.
There aren't enough "oh sh**ts" in the human language.

I was in a bad coaster accident once. It was a station accident, operator error, and I was in the train that hit the other. I saw it coming and it was the longest two seconds I ever spent, trying to brace for god knows what. I wasn't injured like these poor folks but I can relate to what they might've felt as they saw it coming. Awful.

I still cannot believe this happened. Report out of them taking over 10 minutes to call emergency services is crazy. If a crash should happen, that should be the 1st called made. Mistakes happen I get that, but how you respond to mistakes is the most important. A huge get well to all of those involved and this coaster seems like a tear down might be the only option. I never got to ride it but not sure I would hop on it now.

What is particularly odd about this is that the new ASTM standard for Safety Related Control Systems, F2291-14:11, includes a provision that all safeguards are to be functional in all operating modes, and that if a safeguard has to be overridden or disabled, additional safeguards are required such as manual controls that require deliberate and continuous action to operate. In other words, in maintenance mode, the block system is still functional.

Now, that language in F2291 is brand new, and so was not in place when the Smiler was built. But that language was, if I remember right, carried over from the Euronorm EN 13814 standard, which has not only been in effect since 2004, but has been adopted by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), meaning it would have applied to the Smiler.

Besides which, whether it is part of the standard or not, the details which are supposed to prevent this sort of incident from happening are, and have been for years, common industry practice.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

While all those standards may be true Dave. If the train was stalled out somewhere on the course where no photo eye or prox. would pick up the train, and the blocks were reset, then it wouldn't know there was a train there.

But it should also be able to see that a train is unaccounted for, which should also cause a system stop, or at least throw an alert on the control panel, which is typically an E-Stop situation in the operations environments I've had experience with. Of course, if all it does is throw an alert and there's not another block between the trains/it restarted at the top of the lift, there's little time to react if the system doesn't itself, so still a system failure. The more modern rides that I have any familiarity with their controls, not having tabs on a train/vehicle results in an auto ride stop, and it will check for all the trains again when you try to restart ride motion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32980354

The one video in this link shows the paramedics transferring one of the ridders onto a stretcher, and being very cautious of his legs. :( Scary stuff!!

The park reopened this morning and sadly, a couple of hours later, it was confirmed that one of those injured in the incident has had her left leg amputated above the knee. Further, a fifth rider is in hospital suffering from serious internal injuries. Really, really saddening...

Has to be one of the oddest crashes ever. A dancer who has her legs crushed a few days before her birthday, a couple on their first date (one of whom tweets a few hours before about how a push carriage ran over his feet)...eesh. Definitely a sobering, saddening accident.

One thing I kind of want to know is if it is a cultural thing or just that Alton Towers is a pretty classy act? Is this a damage control thing? I've been amazed and kind of touched that they've immediately jumped to action, went waaaay above and beyond by closing the entire park, and they've sent out hand delivered letters claiming full responsibility and suggesting hiring lawyers to ensure everyone gets generous compensation. They've sent rehab specialists, health teams, etc to those most seriously injured. They've shut down other multi-blocked rides. Plus, from the very beginning, things I read seemed to indicate sincere, honest grief and shock from the managers and other big players. I'm just curious. It is very different behavior from parks in the states (although I can't think of anything quite as severe happening anytime recently in the states). I hope in any case that they're as good as their word because those kids...wow. I said it before, but I can't imagine how much pain and fear they've gone through and how much more they have to go through to recover. I hope they'll all get through this and lead full happy lives after this.

The most likely analog in the states was the SFKK Intamin 2nd gen drop ride dismemberment a few years ago. I don't recall Six Flags doing much other than bringing a giant wheelbarrow of cash over and temporarily closing similar rides in other parks.

I think that any coaster per the manufacturer should not be able to run without the block system period, in any mode. With RFID technology they could even know when all trains are in the station and final brake. Perhaps that's missing on coasters, the computer simply only knows if a train has passed a block, how about knowing what train is where with RFID?

Proximity switches already do a pretty good job at that.